Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree is a Scottish

fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cult ...

collected by

Joseph Jacobs Joseph Jacobs (29 August 1854 – 30 January 1916) was an Australian folklorist, translator, literary critic, social scientist, historian and writer of English literature who became a notable collector and publisher of English folklore. Jacobs ...

in his ''Celtic Fairy Tales''. It is Aarne-Thompson type 709,

Snow White "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a 19th-century German fairy tale that is today known widely across the Western world. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection '' Grimms' Fairy Tales'' and numbered as T ...

. Others of this type include ''

Bella Venezia "Bella Venezia" is an Italian fairy tale collected by Italo Calvino in his ''Italian Folktales''. Calvino selected this variant, where the heroine meets robbers, rather than others that contain dwarfs, because he believed the dwarfs were probably a ...

'', ''

Nourie Hadig Nourie Hadig is an Armenian fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and m ...

'', ''

La petite Toute-Belle "La petite Toute-Belle" ("Little Toute-Belle") is a Breton fairy tale published in 1900 by Paul Sébillot in '' Contes des landes et des grèves''.Paul Sébillot, ''Contes des landes et des grèves'', pp 144-152, Hyacinthe Caillière Editeur, Re ...

'' and '' Myrsina''.

Plot

A king had a wife, Silver-Tree, and a daughter, Gold-Tree. One day they walked by a pond, and Silver-Tree asked a

trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', '' Salmo'' and '' Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salm ...

if she were the most beautiful queen in the world, whereupon the trout said that Gold-Tree was more beautiful. Silver-Tree took to her bed and declared she would never be well unless she ate Gold-Tree's heart and liver. A king's son had asked to marry Gold-Tree, so her father agreed and sent them off; then he gave his wife the heart and liver of a he-goat, at which she got up from her bed. Silver-Tree went back to the trout, which told her Gold-Tree was still more beautiful, and living abroad with a prince. Silver-Tree begged a ship of her husband to visit her daughter. The prince was away hunting; Gold-Tree was terrified at the sight of the ship. The servants locked her away in a room so she could tell her mother she could not come out. Silver-Tree persuaded her to put her little finger through the keyhole, so she could kiss it, and when Gold-Tree did, Silver-Tree stuck a poisoned thorn into it. When the prince returned, he was grief-stricken, and could not persuade himself to bury Gold-Tree, because she was so beautiful. He kept her body in a room. Having married for a second time, he would not let his new wife into the room. One day, he forgot the key, and the new wife went in. She tried to wake Gold-Tree, and found the thorn in her finger. Pulling it out, she revived Gold-Tree. Because of the wakened one's identity, the second wife offered to leave, but their husband refused to allow it. Silver-Tree went back to the trout, who told her what had happened. Silver-Tree took the ship again. The prince was hunting again, but the second wife said that the two of them must meet her. Silver-Tree offered a poisoned drink. The second wife said that it was the custom that the person who offered the drink drank of it first. Silver-Tree put the drink to her mouth, and the second wife struck her arm so that some went into her throat. She fell down dead. The prince, Gold-Tree, and the second wife lived happily thereafter.

Analysis

Tale type

The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 709, "Snow White".

Motifs

Folklorist Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...

commented on variants and motifs of the tale in the ''Notes'' of his ''Celtic Fairy Tales''. He suggested the migration of the tale from abroad. He also remarked that publisher and Celtic folklorist Alfred Nutt called Jacobs's attention to the Breton '' lai'' of ''

Eliduc "Eliduc" is a Breton lai by the medieval poet Marie de France. The twelfth and last poem in the collection known as ''The Lais of Marie de France'', it appears in the manuscript Harley 978 at the British Library. Like the other poems in this colle ...

''. According to Alan Bruford, Donald A. MacDonald and Christine Shojaei Kawan, the speaking trout in a pool replaces the mirror in Gaelic, Scottish and Irish variants of the tale type ATU 709, as part of the Irish-Scottish oikotype of ATU 709.Kawan, Christine Shojaei. "Schneewittchen (AaTh/ATU 709)" now White (ATU 709) In: '' Enzyklopädie des Märchens'' Band 12: Schinden, Schinder – Sublimierung. Edited by Rudolf Wilhelm Brednich; Hermann Bausinger; Wolfgang Brückner; Daniel Drascek; Helge Gerndt; Ines Köhler-Zülch; Lutz Röhrich; Klaus Roth. De Gruyter, 2016

007 The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

p. 133. .

References

{{Snow White Female characters in fairy tales Fictional princesses Fictional queens Scottish fairy tales Scottish folklore Snow White ATU 700-749 Joseph Jacobs

Plot

Analysis

Tale type

Motifs

See also

References